{"id":705780,"date":"2026-07-22T19:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705780\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T19:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:41:30","slug":"patient-shares-experience-of-3million-robotic-surgery-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705780\/","title":{"rendered":"Patient shares experience of \u00a33million robotic surgery tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Lee Ellis, 43, told Newsquest Cumbria that he was excited and proud to be involved in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsandstar.co.uk\/news\/26284568.north-cumbria-nhs-showcases-state-of-the-art-robotics-system\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the launch of the \u00a33million da Vinci Xi system<\/a> as its first patient.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Ellis had gall bladder surgery last month, carried-out using the state-of-the-art robotics system.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;I&#8217;d been waiting over 12 months and then I got a cancellation through, so I took the cancellation with a week&#8217;s notice and then was sat here just waiting for a normal surgery and then they came and told me it was going to get done by a robot.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It was a bit of a shock to me really, I was massively intrigued, I think they expected me to be probably a bit anxious and worried about it but the complete opposite, the work I&#8217;m involved with is in research and development, so this tied-in very nicely with the work that I&#8217;m involved with.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I can use it as a fantastic case study for the apprentices I work with.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>Surgeon, Chris Rao using the da Vinci Xi robotic-assisted surgical system on a simulation model. (Image: Stuart Walker)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Ellis works in research and development at RAF Spadeadam and asked to see the robotic before the surgery.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;Without having your gall bladder removed before, it&#8217;s difficult to compare but I&#8217;ve had lots of surgery before in the past unfortunately.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Recovery time has felt just the same, so there&#8217;s been no negatives from it whatsoever, whenever you recover from surgery, it&#8217;s going to be relatively tough and the robot hasn&#8217;t made it any tougher.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It was a positive experience and something I would encourage others to jump at if they got the opportunity.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Ellis was pleased to be a part of the robotic system&#8217;s launch in the operating theatre.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;If it can help others or if it can go some way to improving surgery, speeding surgery up, maybe improving the after-care, then I&#8217;m all for it.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It&#8217;s quite a proud moment really, being that way, especially if I can teach my future apprentices about the importance of it.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ministers want to see NHS trusts like North Cumbria Integrated Care delivering 90 per cent of their key-hole surgery using robotics by 2035.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Ellis, 43, told Newsquest Cumbria that he was excited and proud to be involved in the launch&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-705780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}